


The Things He Kept, Part 2

by pherryt



Series: Mementos [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Confessions, F/M, First Kiss, M/M, Mementos, Season 11 Spoilers, Season 8 compliant, Strong Language, Temporary Character Deaths, magpie!castiel, whitman sampler box
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-22
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-09 22:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6926797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pherryt/pseuds/pherryt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's gone, Cas is too, when Sam and Amelia find the Whitman Sampler box in the Impala's trunk. </p><p>Sam had never looked inside before and never knew his brother had kept all this stuff.</p><p>He had no idea until now that it wasn't Deans, but the angels...</p><p> </p><p>Or - </p><p>How an Angel of the Lord being a kleptomaniac eventually leads to confessions and first kisses...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sam and Amelia find a Time Capsule

**Author's Note:**

> As you can tell by the title, this is part 2.
> 
> Part 1 was supposed to be a one shot but when I accidentally made an addendum because I forgot one little detail that wound up adding Bobby's perspective on the whole thing, I realized that Sam and Cas needed to weigh in on the situation too.
> 
> but since i already put an addendum on the last story after marking it complete, I decided to make Sam and Cas a separate story. If you read the last story before the addendum was put on, please consider going back to read that part too :D

"Hey Sam, what's all this? It's like a mini time capsule." The brunette entered the kitchenette of her motel room, Sam's dog Riot on her heels. Sam was buried shoulders deep under her sink. Again. She'll never get the hang of garbage disposals, because apparently she's jammed it again.

"Did you find the…" he scooted out and froze at the sight of Amelia holding a beat up Whitman Sampler box. She set it down, setting the lid she'd already taken off down beside it.

"No, I didn't, but then I saw chocolates…and I thought, Sam wouldn't mind, not really. He's not much of a sweets person. These must have been in here a while. I should, you know, I should really help him out. Take them off his hands." She had laughter in her voice as she repeated her inner monologue.

It was her turn to freeze as she turned and noticed the look on Sam's face, pale as he stood beside her. He had moved silently. She never even heard him. In fact, he often had to make an effort to be heard so as not to surprise her into a heart attack.

 "Sam, are you all right?" Amelia reached out to him, touching his arm in an attempt to give him some comfort, though she was still unsure what it was for. But he looked like he had seen a ghost, almost like…

"God, that's, that's not mine, Amelia." His words were whispered, pain filled. His hazel eyes were haunted.

"Your brothers?" She asked quietly. He swallowed and nodded.

"Yeah." His voice croaked out, breaking.

"Was this him?" She reached into the box, lifting out the pictures from the very top. They were worn and damaged but obviously cared for. "He was handsome."

Sam sat heavily in a chair next to her, he reached for the small stack of photos with shaking hands and she relinquished them without a word.

"Yeah, yeah that's him. My brother, the king of one night stands – so handsome and charming he never lacked for company if he really wanted it." She could see he was trying to make a joke, but his voice broke again. She rubbed his arm soothingly.

"So who's everyone else then?" She flipped to the next picture and it was a group photo that Sam recognized from the night before their ill fated attempt on Lucifer, when they'd lost Ellen and Jo.

"That's Aunt Ellen and her daughter Jo. Real spitfires, those two. We didn't know them long, they weren't blood family, you understand, but Uncle Bobby always said that "Family don't end in blood, boy." " Sam's voice dipped low and became almost gruff as he said then dropped back to normal . "And well, they were family. That there is Uncle Bobby himself. He was more like a dad to us though. Knew him almost, well almost all our lives, I guess. I can't remember a time when I didn't know him. If we had a home anywhere besides the Impala, it was with him. Some of my happiest memories come from staying at his place…" He trailed off.

"Who's this?" Sam watched her point to the only one left in the picture he hadn't identified, the angel in a trench coat.

"Castiel. He…" Sam stopped. He dropped the photos and grabbed at the box, pulling it away from the table and setting it on top of his long legs, looking inside with wide eyes as he sifted through it all. All the little things he initially wrote off as junk, things not even he or Dean would have saved. A couple of Dean's things, something of his, and even something from Bobby. And a wallet. Already knowing what he would find, he picked it up and opened it while Amelia looked at him in concern. He pocketed the FBI badge at the same time before she could notice it and question it.

"Sam?" For a second he thought he failed, but all he saw was the concern and worry in her eyes. God, she was too good for him, he thought numbly as his eyes dropped away from hers and back to the wallet.

"Shit…these aren't my brothers' things. I mean, some of them were, once, but…these are _Cas's_ things." Jimmy Novaks ID stared up at him from the wallet.

"So if this is your friends stuff, why did you think it was Dean's?"

"Well because these things here are, well, were Deans. I was with him when he bought the whoopee cushion _and_ when he used it to play a prank on Cas. The jerk then accused me of stealing it afterwards when it went missing. Now to be honest, I _would_ have thrown it away if I could have found it, but I never got the chance, it was already gone. And uh, these casings – both Dean and I used them. We marked them too and this one," Sam lifted one out and turned it to face her, "Has his mark on it." He lifted a zippo out of the box next. "I remember when Dean lost this. It was his favorite and he tore apart all our bags _and_ the Impala looking for this. This had been dad's too." Sam shook his head and put it back down.

"But you said it's _not_ his stuff?"

"No." Sam held up the wallet, closed now and held between his forefinger and his thumb. "For starters, this isn't his wallet. Or his phone."

Sam placed the wallet down and rummaged around the box some more. "It's real strange, some of what is actually in here. One of Ellen's shot glasses from the set she bought Bobby. I'd wondered about that, thought Dean or Bobby had busted one of 'em. The letter opener I gave Bobby…broken computer cords I'm sure I threw away. I spilled red paint on this one, so I remember that one actually."

Sam dropped everything back into the box and rubbed a hand over his face. "Amelia, you were more right than you knew, this _is_ kind of like a time capsule. Just, one that wouldn't mean anything to anyone that wasn't us."

"A few mementos of all his friends?"

"Yeah." Sam said quietly. "I had no idea he was collecting these things, or that Dean had them at all. Must have been in the trench coat, there would literally have been no other way for my brother to get his hands on this." Sam's face was thoughtful but sad.

"Most people just collect photos. If he carried all this in his coat, well that's a lot of stuff to carry around. Why do you think…?" she trailed off, unsure how to ask or what, exactly, she was trying to ask.

"Well, Cas was…kind of on loan, and he could be, um, recalled at pretty much any time."

She breathed the words out softly, "So he was afraid he'd be left with nothing to remember all of you by."   He had to choose his words carefully. He didn't want to lie to her, but there was no way he could tell her the whole truth. Instead, he'd let her make her own assumptions. It would be close enough anyway, so long as she never questioned directly. Focusing back on her words, he nodded. Again, she was more right then she knew.  He knew that Castiel was more than likely putting things away against the day they all finally bit the dust. But it had all turned out unnecessary, in the end. "But how did Dean get it all?"

 "Dean must have kept this after…" If Sam hadn't already been sitting down, he was sure his long legs – _"You're a damn Sasquatch, Sam!"_ – would have given out.

Amelia stayed silent, letting him process this new information. She knew Dean was gone and the wounds from that were still fairly raw. She didn’t know what had happened, only that it had been bad. That he had nightmares, sometimes. Where she lost a husband in the service, it seemed like Sam had lost more than the brother he had mentioned. Perhaps the brother was just the most recent.

She picked up the photos again and started looking through the rest of them, giving him time. They were mostly of Sam and Dean and Bobby, a few of that friend he called Cas. Even less of other people. Like the friend whose keepsakes these were had had even less people to care about than Sam had. And that was just sad to think about.

Her fingers stopped on a picture of Sam and his brother with the man in the trench coat – and did he look vaguely familiar? She wasn't sure – the three of them were standing by or leaning on the Impala that Sam doted on. They looked happy, in a way she rarely saw Sam look. But it was the look on the man in the trench coats face as he stared at Sam's brother that took her breath away.

"They must have really loved each other." She observed. Sam looked up, startled, finally folding the wallet and placing it back into the box.

"What? No, well, yeah, I guess, but they didn't seem to realize it." Sam stared at the photo as well and Amelia handed it to him before he could reach for it.

"No?" Surprise lit up her face.

"Yeah." He huffed a wobbly little laugh. "The worst part was, everyone else could see it, but they seemed to be completely oblivious.  Heh, to be honest, I was never sure what exactly they didn't realize."

"What do you mean?"

"Well like, did _Dean_ know that he loved Cas? Or that Cas loved him back? I think Cas might have realized. More than once I heard him say that "Dean and I do share a profound bond." " Sam's voice dropped again, dipping lower this time. It was low and gravely and it seemed to hurt a little, as it caused him to cough a little, reaching for his throat at the same time and rubbing it a little. She laughed

"Did he really sound like that?"

"Yeah, more or less. And Dean, God, he could be such an ass sometimes, but he when he loved someone, he was so goddamn loyal. But even I think he would have denied ever loving Cas…to anyone that asked, maybe even to himself. We have a habit of losing the people we love and I think it scared him, y'know?"

Sam stared at the box in his lap, one hand grasping the side while he ran the other over the lip of the faded yellow box.

"I had no idea Dean even had this box, all these things of Cas's." Sam repeated to her, voice low, barely heard. "God, he must have had this since the reservoir."

"Reservoir?" She hesitated to ask, but she was curious and it seemed like talking was helping him cope at least a little. She'd keep him talking for as long as it continued to, as long as he'd let her. She leaned into him and he leaned back gratefully, pressing a kiss on the top of her head.

"Yeah, it…it wasn't the first time we'd lost Cas, or thought we had. And each time we thought, this was it, he's never coming back from this. And it just tore Dean up, real bad. We watched him go down in that lake and there was nothing, not one thing we could do to save him. I don't even know how long we waited but he just…never came back up. Just that friggin' coat of his. Now that, _that_ I knew Dean had. My big brother would tell you he was not a sentimental man, but he held on to that thing for a good long time." He paused. "So yeah, this all must have been in the pockets. I wonder how much was lost in the lake? Anyway, I always did wonder what Cas kept in his pockets. Guess now I know."

"I didn't see a trench coat."

"That's because it's not there, not anymore. Dean returned it to Castiel when he miraculously showed up again. Not that he remembered us. I don't understand why Dean never returned any of this?"

"He had amnesia?"

"Among other issues. He wound up in a mental hospital for a little while before he was considered well enough to let go."

"Is your friend still alive?" Amelia almost didn't want to ask. Everyone else Sam had mentioned hadn't been.

"No. When I lost Dean, Castiel was with him. God, they are never coming back Amelia, not this time. But at least," He took a deep breath, "at least they went out together, and they went down fighting."

Amelia didn't ask where they'd been stationed or who they'd been fighting. It didn't matter and anyway, she'd long since noticed how certain topics made Sam pick and choose his words very carefully. She didn't think it was due to a lack of trust on his part, either. But it was clear he and his brother, and some of his friends even, had been part of something, and one thing a military wife knew was when someone wasn't allowed to speak of where they'd been or what they were doing. She may not have liked it, but she understood it. And she understood that it wasn't up to Sam to say. Time to change the topic…

"So why a chocolate box? Did Dean eat a lot of sweets? I know he didn't get this box from you." She chided with a grin and a nudge. He laughed.

"God, Dean's eating habits were atrocious! He always made fun of me for my rabbit food and refused to deviate from his norm in any way. Give him a burger and a shit load of pie and you could make him a really happy man. But uh, no, the box isn't Dean's either. It was Bobby's."

Sam placed the box back on the table and picked up the pictures again, flipping through them. Some he recognized, some he didn't. He stopped and tapped one. Amelia looked at the gruff looking, scruffy older man wearing the same ridiculous style plaid over shirt that Sam always seemed to wear and the ball cap. He seemed to have a no nonsense, yet still kind look to his face.

"Uncle Bobby's wife, Karen, she had a thing for Whitman's Chocolate. She was really nice and sweet, and she could bake a great pie but, uh, she died a long time ago. We didn't actually know her all that well. But those were all hers. I accidentally uncovered Bobby's stash once. He'd hid them all in a box at the back of his garage. Sentimental old coot. Those boxes were special to him, a reminder of his wife and the fact that he gave one to Dean is just…he was an amazing, generous man. Ornery and smarter than he looked. You probably see just a redneck…" Amelia tried to protest, "But he knew a lot of languages, like Ancient Greek, Japanese and Latin. I think he might have known Celtic too. And his knowledge of ancient religions and mythologies, even to some really obscure stuff was…it was unparalleled."

"Is that what he did for a living? Consulting work?" Sam started, looking up at her, his looking considering and smiled. "Yeah, yeah he did. A lot of folks called him for trivia all the time. Verification of certain things for whatever they were working on. You could definitely say that."The smile faded and he sniffled, rubbing at his face. Amelia handed him some tissues and he gratefully took them.

"I wish I could have met your family, Sam. They sound wonderful."

"Yeah, they really were.

So what about you? Do you have any mementos?" She waved a hand at the box.

"Yeah, you could say that. I have a few things for Dean. Only two that really matter though. The Impala was dad's car. We grew up in that thing, traveling all over, and when Dean was old enough, our old man gave it to him. Dean…you think _I'm_ bad with it, you should have seen him. He loved that car. And uh," Sam dug into his pocket and pulled out a necklace on a black cord. "This."

"Wow that is creepy looking. Pretty cool, but definitely creepy." Sam laughed.

"I got this from Uncle Bobby when I was a kid. Was supposed to give it to dad but I gave it to Dean instead. It's meant for protection. Dean never took it off." He decided not to mention the fact that his brother had thrown it away after the great God disappointment. It had really hurt all of them, but Sam thought Dean might regret throwing it away one day, so he kept it. He's pretty sure Dean never knew.

"And I've got storage units from Uncle Bobby that I'll probably need to sort through one day. But for everyone else, I really only have photos."

"Well, now you have this. It may have been your friends, but it seems he collected things from some of your other friends too."

"That's true. Thanks, Amelia. I think…I think I'm just going to put this back in the trunk right now. It, this may sound silly but, I feel like if I keep them together, the Impala and this box, it's kind of like Dean and Castiel still get to be together, even though they're gone."

"No, that's not silly Sam, I don't think that's silly at all. In fact, I think that's real sweet. And if you need a moment alone, just, take all the time you need, okay babe?"

 


	2. It's Castiel's Turn...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amara and Chuck are gone. Lucifer no longer resides inside Castiel, and Dean finally decides it's time to admit to Castiel that he has all his mementos...and why.
> 
> or
> 
> Dean and Cas have a little heart to heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's it, that's all she wrote. Literally.

Amara was gone. Chuck was gone. Dark and light, the balance restored.  Chuck had said they couldn't kill Amara because it would unbalance creation, eventually destroying it. And of course, they couldn't just let Amara roam free because she had already point blank said she was set on doing just that. But with both of them gone…there was no imbalance. With company in the cage, she was a little more willing to go back, as unhappy with the idea as she was. She may have been nothingness, but loneliness will drive anyone mad.

That had been the surprisingly simple solution when the dust had cleared and Castiel had been left alone in his vessel once again. Everything was over. The world was, currently, not in danger of a global catastrophe and he was free of control.  He should feel happy, glad but instead he just felt lost, as he sat at the table in the bunkers kitchen. Every little change since he'd been in here last was a little jarring after so long being sequestered in the corners of his own mind, drawing solace and purpose both from the memories of a place he liked to think of as home.

He wasn't really sure he was permitted to, though. Dean had been incoherent, to say the least. Castiel had most definitely upset him greatly and while he had known the brothers might not like his actions, he had still thought that they would have understood. There was something more at play and he knew they needed to talk, but Castiel had no idea where to even start.

"Beer or coffee?" The angel looked up. There was a tight look on Dean's face, an unreadable expression. Dean had barely stopped glaring at him after his initial relief which Castiel had been a little too out of to really register.  He'd been glaring since they'd gotten back and Castiel, who could once have stared unblinkingly for hours at the green eyed hunter, had found himself averting his eyes. He's not sure why. Shame, guilt, the uncertainty of where he stood now. Then again, he was never exactly sure where he stood. Just when he thought he knew, Dean would do or say something that 'tore the rug out from under him'.

"Um…just coffee. Thanks." Dean nodded and turned away and Castiel slid his hands, clasped together, off the table and into his lap.

Sam wasn't there. He wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. Sam could be the buffer they needed to keep the current awkwardness away. Then again, with Sam there, Dean probably wouldn't even open up to talk at all. And if there was one thing he knew, it was that they needed to talk. Whether they wanted to or not.

Before too long, a plain black coffee in a white mug with red around the lip was set in front of him. Dean took a seat at the corner next to him, his beer thunking down with a dull sound, dropping the bottle cap seconds later with a clink.

They sat in silence, both wary of opening the can of worms between them. Dean took a gulp and thunked the bottle back on the table again, sighing. Without thinking, Castiel's long fingers had reached for the bottle cap and started turning it over in his hands, moving his fingertips over the scalloped edges.

Briefly, Castiel wondered what had ever happened to all his things, his little keepsakes. When he'd returned from purgatory, Dean had rather sheepishly handed him his wallet and phone, along with the FBI badge, but that had been it. No pictures or any of the rest. He wondered if it all had been lost in the lake when he'd…well…or if Dean, Sam and Bobby had simply reclaimed the stuff that had been theirs and tossed the rest as useless junk. He wouldn't have blamed them if they had.

It took him a while, being mind controlled and then falling hadn't given him much time for thinking or implementing,  but the angel had started a new collection, and had been rather amazed that any of it had survived his possession by Lucifer. Castiel had focused more on photos this time,  as these would be the least questioned if ever found, he figured.

"So, we need to talk." Dean's rough voice finally broke the silence, full of anger and so much more that Castiel had trouble picking apart.

"Of course Dean."

"You're not gonna make this easy, man, are ya?"

"I was unaware that…I'm sorry Dean, it's not my intention to make things hard. But I hardly know what you want me to address exactly." Dean spluttered, his face disbelieving.

"You can't be serious, Cas! I mean, god _damn_ , saying yes to **_Lucifer_**? What the fuck was that all about, huh? We could have lost you man, and for what? Lucifer wound up being pretty fucking useless in the end."

"Dean, he wasn't." Castiel's face was stubborn, eyes narrowed. "I'll admit that it didn't work out the way I had expected but without him, we would never have gotten the angels on board, we would have kept Amara distracted for so long while my father came to his decision, came up with his grand plan. If I had been a…a single occupancy, it's very likely Amara would have smote me outright for being too insignificant. Lucifer was…he was actually a pretty good shield." Castiel admitted grudgingly.

"I don’t fucking care, Cas. It was a fucking _miracle_ that things happened the way they did. The potential for so much bad, so much that could have gone wrong seriously outweighed the risks, especially to you! What on earth possessed you – and no!" Dean held up a finger, "Don't you _dare_ say Lucifer! – to say yes in the first place?"

"Dean, it was an acceptable risk. I was useless, powerless against her. And against Lucifer just as I had been before. He would have killed you to get to Sam and she was going to destroy the world. What is the worth of a single angel who, who…'fucks up everything he touches'? So yes, I thought, it could be done. Lucifer would be the lesser of two evils. He, at least, would leave the universe standing when he was done. And with no Michael or any other archangels around, it was hardly like he could start the Apocalypse as he had been fated to do. We'd already removed all the players from the board. There would be no one left to fight."

"Maybe not, Cas, but he could have started a different one and then you'd still be gone. Hell, you were _already_ gone! Didn't you think at all about what I, what Sam and I would be going through, not knowing if we'd ever get you back?"

"You were worried?" Castiel felt his head tilt automatically, confused.

"Of course I was, _we_ were. You matter to us, to _me_ , Cas, as much as Sam! You can't…" Dean's voice shook and Castiel felt surprise as Dean turned partially away from him, a hand coming up to cover his face. "Jesus fucking Christ." His voice was rough and cracking.

"Dean?" Castiel asked in some concern, dropping the bottle cap and leaning forward to grasp Dean's shoulder. A shudder ran through the hunters' body. "Dean?" Castiel repeated. Dean's shoulders hunched some his face still turned away. His voice was still shaking and it was now thick with tears, Castiel realized with some surprise.

"I can't lose you again, man. Every time I think you're gone, I think…This is it. He can't come back from this. And it just tears me up. And I can't, I can't." Dean shuddered to a stop and Castiel realized he was breathing hard. "Sonuva bitch." The words came out softly as Dean stood abruptly, causing the angels hand to slide off his shoulder and fall away. "Stay here, I'll be…I'll be right back. Don't you go _anyw_ here you hear me?"

 Dean turned to look at him, dropping his hands away from his face. Castiel looked up in confusion and guilt, up into the hunter's wet eyes, a few tear tracks staining his freckled face. He nodded solemnly and Dean nodded sharply back, turned on his heel and left the kitchen.

Worried, confused, the angel waited, trying to uncover the older Winchesters distress. He didn't understand how Dean and Sam couldn't support his decision. They were all warriors. They all knew that sometimes sacrifices needed to be made, for the greater good. Though, he supposed when it came to the brothers, that wasn’t always true. They _did_ sacrifice a lot, he well knew. They'd sacrificed so much that they actually became more protective of the last thing they had left. Each other. Even to the detriment of others sometimes. Castiel's eyes widened in realization.

The way they were acting, how _Dean_ was acting, towards him was very reminiscent of that. He sat, stunned, while he waited for Dean's return. And when he finally did, his face had been freshly scrubbed of all evidence of tears, and he was gently placing a beat up yellow box in front of him.

Castiel tilted his head at the box that simply read _WHITMANS CHOCOLATES_ and then looked up at Dean with the same confused tilt and a crease above his eyes.

"I don't understand. What is this?"

"Just…open the box, okay Cas? I'm…gonna get another beer." Dean turned away, unable to face Castiel  when he finally opened the box and discovered what was inside. Inevitably, there would be questions. But that was okay. Dean was having a little difficulty communicating right now and he felt this would help him get the words he needed to say out into the open for Castiel to hear.

Wasting no time, Castiel did as directed, lifting the lid from the box and gasping in surprise. It wasn't _all_ there of course. He'd probably been right about some of it getting lost in the reservoir but…it was the little mementos, some taken without permission, on the sly, that he'd kept in his pockets. Pretty little stones, and one of his own feathers. So many little things of Deans like his zippo and the whoopee cushion and the shotgun shells. A few things from Sam, though none of the post it's had apparently survived their water bath.

He's amazed that the photos _did_ make it, though they do look a little the worse for wear. Reaching for those first, he passed a hand over them, returning them to their former glory. Another quick glance inside showed that he also still had the things he'd lifted from Bobby's to keep as pieces of him and Ellen. Sadly, other than getting buttons from every member of Team Free Will, he had never managed to find anything of Jo's he could walk off with with no one the wiser. But he still had the pictures.

"Dean…" his voice was quiet, confused. "Where did…how did…Did you have all of this all along?" He looked up to see Dean staring at him nervously. Why would _he_ be nervous? It was the angel who should be nervous, worried, that Dean and the others would be mad at this obvious invasion of their privacy, for the theft of their things.

"Yeah, I kept them safe for you. It um…well, at first I thought, you were gone and all I had left of you was your trench coat and all this. And then we found you but…there hadn't seemed to be a point to giving you back any of this stuff when you were stuffed in a mental asylum. Then, well, you know, Purgatory. Man, I thought you were dead, again, or at least never coming back and I was, I was just _glad_ , y'know? That I never gave any of this back, that I still had something to remember you by, even if it hurt."

"You're not mad at me?"

"What? For this?" Dean gestured with the hand holding his beer at the box between them."Hell no. I get it man, I mean, I really do. After all, I kept it, for the same purpose you made it, really."

"So, when I came back from Purgatory, why did you only gave back my wallet, phone and badge?"

"Well, I kinda thought you'd be mad at me, you know? And then things went weird, man. You didn't seem yourself and I was just unsure. When it turned out I was right, and then you disappeared…" He lifted his beer for another gulp before continuing.

"And then the plan to seal the gates of Hell _and_ Heaven, I almost told you then, returned it all to you then but…there was just too much going on and not enough time. The chance slipped through my fingers and I both cursed it and loved it. I would have deprived you of your keepsakes, but at least I'd have some of my own. Cause if I'm bein' honest here - and y'know that's rare, Cas - it hurt real bad to think you'd be leaving me, and I'd have nothing to show you were ever here. And so…I was, I guess you could say I was a little selfish."

Dean hunched in again as he finished his little speech, avoiding the angels blue eyes as they searched his face. He finished the beer with one last gulp and slammed it down on the table with a loud thunk, swallowing and then taking a huge breath right after, obviously stealing himself for something.

"Cas, I…I don’t know if you, if you feel the same way, exactly, but I just, I can't hide it anymore man. I can't lose you, I…" his voice hitched, his eyes glistened again and Castiel reached out for him. Placing his hand again on Dean's shoulder, the one he always sort of thought of fondly as the place he'd left his mark, he gripped him, attempting to reassure and encourage him. Deans voice was low but clear as he continued.

"You gotta know already, don't you? I mean, you can read minds and all that shit, appear in dreams. Hell, you probably knew before I did." When Castiel just tilted his head at him, blue eyes confused and wary but perhaps just a little hopeful too, Dean huffed a watery laugh. "Gonna make me say it huh? Go full on chick flick moment."

Dean reached a hand up to cover Castiel's as it rested on his shoulder and saw the angels eyes widen in shock as they looked from his hand, back up to Dean. Had his touches been that rare to evince a response like that? God, he'd been such an ass to his blue eyed angel.

Suddenly he leaned in close, bringing them nose to nose. If it was possible, Castiel's eyes widened even further, flicking all over Dean's face, unable to settle. Dean pulled his hand away from Cas's and raised it up to cup his cheek instead, sliding it over the stubble on his jaw. It made a rasping sound against his skin. Before either of them really, fully realized it, lips brushed chapped lips in a soft, chaste kiss. It was brief, Dean pulling back just enough to rest his forehead against Castiel's as he whispered the three words that had been echoing in his heart for more years than he'd realized, words he avoided as a matter of rote,

"I love you, Castiel." He brushed another soft kiss against chapped lips, but not before he heard the gasp from the angel before him. "And if you don't feel the same, it's okay, but…"

Before he knew it, the angels chapped lips were covering his, brushing against his own harder than he had, while long fingers gently cradled his face, thumbs pressing upwards and brushing off the tears streaming from his eyes. Fuck. He hadn't even realized he was crying. He was just glad Sam wasn't here to see this.

"I do, Dean. I've loved you since before I fell the first time. I think I've loved you since I saw your soul in Hell. Shining so bright in all that darkness, so pure." Dean tried to scoff but Castiel shushed him, placing a finger over his lips. "No, you do, you are. I've never seen a soul like yours. It may have been a little rough around the edges, but it held so much raw goodness…I think I was lost to you then. And when I think of a world that no longer has you in it…it hurts me to my core."

"Yeah but Cas, I've been promised an express road to heaven when I finally bite the big one for good…you're an angel, couldn't you just come and see me? If _you_ die…you're just, you're just gone! Unless I've misunderstood…?" Dean asked, hopefully.

"No, that's true. But I don't want to think about death right now. Hopefully, with everything just settling, we'll have some peace for a while." Dean nodded, sniffling.

"Yeah, I can get behind that."

"Are you, are you still mad at me?"

"Cas, do you get _why_ I was mad at you? I was mostly just scared shitless that you'd be gone, forever, and that would be it. I'd never see these beautiful blue eyes, or hear that impossible grumble of a voice. I wouldn't be able to make you happy with a friggin' cheeseburger, of all things, or endure your adorable lectures about bees. Dude, I don't even have a clue why you're so obsessed with those things, like, they sting people!"

With some surprise, Dean noted that tears were now flowing down Cas's face too, and he rubbed them away with his own hands, placing another lingering kiss on the angel before pulling away. Castiel's hands spasm noticeably as they dropped away from Dean's face, as if afraid that if they let go, they'd never get another chance to touch him like this again.

Dean reached for the box laying almost forgotten between them on the table and pulled it closer to them both, closer to the corner.

"What do you say, Cas? Stay here? With me and…and we can start adding to this box, together. Sound good to you?"

Castiel surged forward for another brief kiss, this one somehow even more gentle and loving  than the others shared so far, followed by another, and then another.

"More than good." He breathed from chapped lips. "It sounds perfect."

And unnoticed by them, Sam tiptoed away from the kitchen with a very happy smile on his face.

_About friggin' time._  He thought.


End file.
